Current manufacturing techniques employed in the production of aircraft and aircraft components do not provide a system or method for the high-volume manufacture of fibre-reinforced composite components having variable geometry and/or variable laminate structures. As a result, the manual effort required to produce such components is significant, and this naturally also leads to substantial costs.
A very recent development, however, the subject of co-pending European Patent Application No. EP 13 168 504.2, provides a system and method for continuous preforming of reinforcing material for subsequent inclusion in a composite component. The entire contents of EP 13 168 504.2 are incorporated herein by reference. The present disclosure aims to develop this concept further. That is, an idea of the disclosure is to provide a new and improved system and method for producing fibre-reinforced composite components, particularly for the aircraft or spacecraft industries. In this regard, the system and method of the disclosure can desirably be fully automated and configured for continuous operation.